Hello dear OSFM family. We have news, and it’s been a long time coming… Over the past several years the practice of primary care medicine has been changing rapidly, in terms of both cost and complexity. You may or may not know that small, independent primary care practices are disappearing at an alarming rate. Most primary care practices today are owned and operated by large medical centers with significant resources, connected to and funded by their specialty clinics. We have spent the last several years trying to navigate how to survive and thrive in a model designed for large practices with doctors seeing more than 30 patients a day and who are doing 6–15-minute visits. That's not who we are.
At OSFM, we offer comprehensive, integrative, naturopathic family medicine. Doing so takes time, mindfulness, and resources in a way that is a mismatch with the current insurance model. We have found that we spend a sizable portion of each day providing “Non-Covered Services”, as they’re known in the healthcare world, and that doing so has begun to affect our ability to keep the clinic running smoothly. These Non-Covered Services are an important part of providing holistic care for you and your family. Rather than limiting these activities, we have decided to embrace them and more intentionally carve out staff time and resources to do them and do them well. To do this, we’ll need your help.
We have looked at this puzzle from every angle. We have crafted a solution and, in the process, gained clarity about what must be protected. We will:
So, what does this mean for you? Beginning May 1, 2022, we will be joining a movement among small practices intended to protect our way of providing care. We will be instituting a Non-Covered Services Fee for all patients in the practice. This out-of-pocket monthly or per-visit fee will cover the cost of administrative and care coordination services we provide that are NOT covered by your insurance. This is a hybrid approach, as we WILL continue to bill insurance as we always have for the health care services that they cover and will institute the Non-Covered Services fee only for non-covered services. We wanted to give you plenty of notice and time to plan and ask questions.
What are “Non-Covered Services”? Non-Covered Services are all the things we do that insurance plans will not pay for and which are complementary to our healthcare services. These services are not considered “medically necessary” by insurers or are not covered unless provided on the day of your visit. These Non-Covered Services are not direct patient care, but consist of the communication, administrative work, and care coordination services we provide to ensure that you and your family are receiving the most comprehensive and holistic wellness care we can offer. Some examples of these services include:
Options. We know you each interact with us differently, so we have designed our approach to give you options. You can choose to pay at each visit or opt into a lower monthly payment that covers these services all year long.
You can find a copy of the Non-Covered Services Agreement HERE
If you select the Monthly option, consider signing up before May 1st and set up automatic payment and you will get the first 2 months free.
We deeply value the relationship we have with each of you. This shift will help us preserve our ability to tend you in a system that wants faster, bigger, more algorithmic healthcare when we KNOW that this time calls for exactly the opposite. Thank you for supporting us as we deepen our resilience and allow us to continue offering you the independent naturopathic primary care you want and expect.
For more information visit www.oneskyfamilymedicine.com, send us a message on the portal or give us a call if you'd like to talk more about these options.
Yours in Health,
The One Sky Family Medicine team
One Sky Family Medicine
6327 22nd AVE NE, Seattle WA 98115
phone 206-363-5555 fax 206-363-5533
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